I got a HUGE — on the order of 15 pounds — bag of tomatoes at the end of the market in San Rafael last week for five bucks. “Fill up your canvas bag for $5!” shouted the man who wanted to go home empty, so I felt obligated to help him out.
The flavor was good, but not eye-poppingly so, which could only mean one thing: I would replenish my stash of dried tomatoes. Or, more accurately, semi-dried tomatoes.
It’s amazing how a little heat — 200 degrees — can concentrate flavors. A tomato with slightly above-average taste can turn into a flavor monster just by slicing it, putting it on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet, and slow-baking it for two to three hours. You could continue the baking and get *really* dried tomatoes, the ones that get superhard and then need to be resoftened, either by steeping in olive oil (which does give you a magnificently flavored olive oil) or by reconstituting in hot water. But why bother with the extra step? Why not just take them out when they’re semi-dry and easy to chew and even easier to cook with?
This batch got a rather special treatment, however. I decided to up the umami quotient (even though dried tomatoes are already loaded with umami) by dusting them with pulverized shiitake powder, kosher salt, and pepper. Wow, do they hit all the salivation buttons! I just keep them in a glass jar, with a lid, in the fridge; they’ve lasted a few months in the past using this method, but these umami bombs are so good I suspect they’ll disappear rather quickly.
Some of the tomatoes get a little harder than others. With the harder ones, I just whirred them in the spice grinder with some sel gris for a perfect (and beautifully colored) new umami salt. Made a quick omelet this morning with some of the semi-dried ones, along with greek yogurt, chives, fresh basil, and tomato salt, and man oh man we were the happiest campers on the block, though a few cups of Blue Bottle coffee espresso and a hunk of Acme herb slab didn’t hurt the mood either!
If you’ve got some extra tomatoes, do give this a shot. And please report back with what you do with them!
hmmmm…trying to figure out a way to rewind the clock, borrow a car and make sure I show up at your house just before breakfast this morning! That sounds wonderful, Eric dear. Now I know what I’m going to do when Mariquita’s tomatoes kick in.
Yum, that sounds fantastic! as soon as we are in real tomato season, I will try that and report back. I love the tomato salt idea too! thanks
Ok, I’m REALLY salivating! Thank you for the wonderful tip on tomatoes. I’ll be stocking up at this weekend’s farmers market.
Thanks for umami, Eric! Question: do you add the shitake powder, etc. before you dry the tomatoes or after they come out of the oven? When I return from our trip to the San Juan Islands, I hope a few of my tomatoes will be ripe and I can give this idea a try. AND, tomato salt…yum, I can hardly wait!
Yes, sprinkle it on as they first go into the oven. And as Dana mentioned over on Facebook, you make the pulverized shiitake powder by just whirring a few (dried) shiitake pieces in a spice/coffee grinder. Or, even better/more efficiently, in a VitaPrep.
I make roasted tomatoes every summer, and am always amazed at how flavorful they are. Just wanted to thank you for the idea of using the ones that get a bit too hard in salt, what a brilliant idea!
Love the idea of the shiitake powder. It’s on the calendar for this weekend.
We’ve had an exceptionally rainy summer in the NE but when the tomato crop finally hits, I’ll be all over this recipe. Picture alone got me drooling.
Thanks!
Hello Eric,
These look gorgeous, even though I almost fainted as I read on and learned that the sauce of umami here was shiitake, which basically is my enemy No. 1 in the world of food. I think I’ll try them with dried porcini…should be okay? Thanks as always for your great inspirations!
Thanks peoples!
Any dried mushroom will work for umami. Are you allergic to shiitake, Chika? Is it their smell that makes them enemy #1?
Haven’t done any of this yet, but here are a couple of my ideas:
Make a spread out of them mixed with olive oil and Za’atar. Use on crostini, in scrambled eggs. Top some pizza dough with it and drizzle with greek yogurt when it comes out of the oven for a Breakaway Mana’ish (Flatbread topped with olive oil and tons of za’atar.)
Riff on Gigandes and blend with runner beans, honey and a whole mess of fresh dill. I like adding Feta to my gigandes so why not throw some of that in as well?
Has there ever been an idea involving za’atar that wasn’t good? Excellent thoughts, thanks!
Thanks Eric – I think it’s the smell that puts me off the most, but I can’t appreciate their taste or texture, either. And I wouldn’t touch them unless I REALLY have to. As a kid I used to hate all kinds of mushrooms, but have grown out of it and now I’m alright with, or even fond of, most of them – except shiitake and matsutake as far as Japanese cuisine is concerned. I like porcini and I’m sure I’ll love these tomatoes with it, too!
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